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The house empties the way a tide pulls back.
Not all at once, just slowly enough that Megan doesn’t notice until the echoes start answering her back.
First it’s Sophia, suitcase by the door, phone pressed to her ear, speaking Tagalog too fast for Megan to catch. She hugs Megan tightly, promises she’ll facetime her on Christmas morning, says something about mangoes and heat and home. Megan smiles and waves from the porch as the car pulls away, taillights blinking red like something she’s supposed to understand.
Then Manon leaves, glowing in that soft, secret way she’s had for months now. She smells like Sophie’s perfume when she hugs Megan goodbye. Megan notices, she almost hates how much she does. Manon promises postcards. Promises photos. Promises she’ll be back before Megan even misses her.
It is already too late for that.
Yoonchae is next. She bows out gently, almost apologetically, excitement buzzing under exhaustion. Korea is calling, exclaiming independence, family, adulthood and something Katseye has yet to promise her. Megan helps zip Yoonchae’s suitcase and watches her disappear into something bigger than this house, bigger than the quiet settling into the walls.
Lara is last before it really starts to hurt. London. Orlando. Love worn openly, fearlessly. Lara dances through the kitchen while packing, music blasting, humming off-key. She kisses Megan’s cheek and tells her to behave, to not rot, to text if she needs anything.
Megan laughs and promises she won’t spiral.
She does not keep that promise.
By the time the front door closes, the house exhales. The kind of exhale that says it’s just you now.
Dani was never really here to say goodbye, already gone a random morning with no note. No I’ll miss you too.
The Dominican Republic, the sun, water and palm trees. Distance measured in time zones and silence, time spent with someone else.
Megan tells herself this is fine. And honestly? For a few days, it almost is.
Emily and Joshua come over with pizza boxes stacked too high, grease bleeding through cardboard. They sit on the living room floor because the couch feels too big now. Emily talks with her hands, Joshua steals Megan’s hoodie and refuses to give it back. Megan laughs, really laughs, and her chest feels lighter in a way that almost scares her.
They come over again. And again. They eat, they talk they dance and sing, they sprawl across the floor like nothing is wrong. Because why would it be? Megan tells herself this is being okay, that there is no gnawing feeling in her chest. No quiet sense of dread that cloud her eyes in bed at night. She goes to bed early anyway, tells herself its to keep up with their hard schedule even during the break. But then she wakes up late anyways. The days slowly stretching.
One morning she wakes up with her head groggy and heavy, like she hasn't been sleeping enough despite the countless hours spent in bed. The only reason she was really woken up was the string of messages Emily sent her. The only one she replies to being:
Emily: How are you really doing?
Megan: I’m fine. Promise. Just tired.
She notices, vaguely, that Emily didn’t ask her to promise. The words echoed in her head, as if she was really trying to convince herself instead.
The cloudiness creeps back in quietly, it sneaks up on her. She starts staying in bed longer, the hours blurring together. When she does get up, she travels between each member's world. Looking in places she'd never thought of, Lara’s secret box in her closet, Yoonchae's keychain collection, Manon’s drawer with a tin box full of joints. She never dares to go into Daniela's room.
Emily knocks on her door one afternoon and refuses to leave. She drags Megan out, physically, gently, into daylight. They go to a studio. Music loud, with mirrors that are unforgiving. Megan dances until her body remembers itself. She laughs. She sweats. She feels almost human.
That night they go out. They drink. They dance under lights that don’t ask questions. Megan lets herself feel young and alive and briefly untethered. And on the walk home it feels like the sun is shining even during the dark.
For a moment, she believes maybe this time the clouds will go away for good.
Then Emily becomes busy, leaves to be with her family.
Joshua leaves too.
She can’t help but accept the never ending chant her brain has fixated on, everyone leaves.
The house goes quiet again, god forbid her brain does too. She’s just completing the cycle of her new found routine, open tiktok, get bored of it, and then move on to instagram without even thinking.
She tries, she really does, to resist the urge to click on the girls' stories. I mean, she’s never had good self regulation anyways? She'll start next year. She almost smiles at Lara and her flowers, at Manon and her countless friends.
Then Jonah’s story loads.
Dani, walking away from the camera. Bare back. Bikini strings tied neat. Sun-soaked. Chosen.
Megan drops her phone. It feels like her heart copies her phone. She stares at Daniela's back as if it was ever hers. With fondness for a thing you've had and then suddenly have made aware you've lost it. She chokes on her own sob, her body demands to wail, to exclaim, beg, cry, but like a reflex she shoves it far down. Until she realizes she is all alone. Not another soul around to hear her, she wonders if they were would they care? Really care? Not because it was their responsibility, their job to keep this group together.
I loved you before he even knew your name.
The thought lands sharp and final. And she lets herself cry, no, who was she kidding? She bawled, drowning in her own tears, drowning because of the clouds that would not stop raining on her.
The days drag again.
She sleeps even earlier. Wakes up even later, unaware if it's day or night, simply that it is time to go to bed again, when the wave of exhaustion hits her. She texts Emily like she's fine. Lies to her family, tries to stand and cries instead. The ache in her heart becomes mundane. Repetitive. Exhausting. It drains the energy out of her, her sole bodily purpose to feed the growing pain in her chest. Sleep to feed it energy, cry to let it speak.
Before she even realizes Christmas comes. Only aware of it by the impending call from Sophia that comes. The same call she ignores, pretends doesn't exist.
She FaceTimes her family, angles the camera so they can’t see the mess behind her. She smiles. Laughs when she’s supposed to. Says she’s good. Says she’s happy. Lies so easily it almost scares her. Almost, the sudden familiarity to the lies comfort her in a mirage she creates to cover up the water she sits in.
After the call, she opens the packages they mailed, hoping material goods can fix all her problems.
They don't. But they are cute, a new dress: cheetah print. And a Vamp sweater.
She stares at it for a while, she presses the sweater to her face takes a deep breath and sobs until its alrrady stained with snot marks everywhere. She sinks into the floor surrounded by wrapping paper and somethung that tastes like grief. The fabric smells faintly like Dani, likely due to Daniela being a permanent resident of this houselhold. Dani is all around her, and that feels like a personal cruelty.
No matter where she goes, Dani gets there first.
The kitchen remembers late-night snacks.
The couch remembers tangled legs.
The hallway still echoes with footsteps that aren’t coming back anytime soon.
If she isn’t in bed, she’s crying.
If she is in bed, she’s thinking. And oh boy, thinking hurts so much worse than her swollen eyes. Like usual she sits in bed and thinks, so much she feels like her thoughts might suffocate her. The air becomes thinner, her bed way too hot, her shoulders too heavy for her to hold up. She can't remember the last time she had eaten all day. So she reaches into Manon’s drawer.
Maybe this will lift the curse that's been put on her. Maybe the haze will take away the soaked in sorrow feeling away from her frontal lobe.
She doesn’t overthink it. Thinking has only hurt her lately. She sits on the back steps wrapped in a hoodie, cold air biting at her skin, the sky wide and full. It looked stunning, the moon shining almost as bright as the stars, clouds looming the sky even at this time of night.
The smoke settles easily in her lungs. And something loosens.
The ache in her chest dulls. The thoughts stop crashing. The world softens around the edges. Megan laughs, startled by the sound.
Music drifts from inside, something familiar, something from before the storm.
She sways and then dances. Arms loose, head tipped back. She sings under her breath, voice raw but present. Then screams lyrics, and then shushes herself giggling to not wake anyone.
For the first time in two weeks, she feels free.
Megan falls asleep smiling.
Megan awakes hollow.
Not tired, not sad at first. Just empty. The moment she looks at herself in the mirror the pain crashes back all at once, violent and unforgiving. Everything she avoided floods in triple strength.
Dani’s laugh.
Dani’s hands.
Dani walking away forever.
Megan curls inward, fist pressed to her chest.
she whispers. “You can't keep hiding.”
She promises herself she’ll never get high again.
That afternoon, there’s knocking.
She ignores it.
The knocking turns into pounding.
“Megan,” someone calls. “Open the door.”
She breaks.
Emily and Joshua pull her into their arms the second she opens it. No judgment. No questions. Just warmth.
They clean the house. They make her homemade food. They tell her she stinks.
“Go shower,” Emily says, gentle but firm. “Seriously.”
When Megan comes back from the shower, hair damp and curling at the nape of her neck, she pauses in the hallway.
The house is quiet.
For half a second, her chest tightens. That familiar drop. The instinctive thought that everyone leaves eventually, that warmth is temporary, that if she steps forward she’ll find an empty kitchen and the echo of kindness already gone.
She almost turns back.
But then she hears Joshua laughing. Emily shushing him. The soft clink of a spoon against a bowl.
They’re still here.
Megan stands there longer than she means to, just listening, grounding herself in the sound of other people occupying the same space. When she finally steps into the kitchen, they both look up at her like she’s something fragile but real.
“There you are,” Emily says gently, like Megan didn’t almost disappear entirely.
They sit around the table. No phones. No music. Just the overhead light that’s a little too bright and the smell of real food. Joshua slides a bowl toward her. Megan eats because they’re watching, because they care, because it would be rude not to.
For a while, no one says anything important.
They talk about nothing. About a movie Emily watched. About how Joshua got lost on the way over even though he’s been here a hundred times. Megan listens. Nods. Breathes.
Then Emily reaches across the table and takes Megan’s wrist. Just enough.
“Okay,” she says softly. “Talk to us.”
Megan opens her mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Her throat closes, eyes burning instantly, like her body has been waiting for permission to fall apart in front of someone safe.
“I—” she tries. Stops. Laughs weakly. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Emily doesn’t let go. Joshua scoots his chair closer.
“Anywhere,” Joshua says. “We’re not going anywhere.”
So Megan tells them. She talks about the house emptying, about Christmas, about waking up hollow and sleeping too much, about the weed and the crash, about Jonah’s story and how it felt like her heart physically dropped out of her chest. She says Daniela’s name out loud for the first time in days and flinches when it hurts.
She cries while she talks. Keeps apologizing for it. Emily keeps wiping her cheeks with her thumb and telling her to stop apologizing for bleeding.
“I loved her,” Megan says finally, voice breaking completely. “I loved her for so long. And she didn’t even— she never—”
She can’t finish.
Joshua stands up and pulls her into a hug so sudden and solid it knocks the air out of her. Emily joins, arms around Megan’s shoulders, her face pressed into Megan’s hair.
Megan cries like she’s been holding her breath for weeks.
And slowly, something changes.
It feels like the water she’s been sitting in, chest-deep and cold, is finally starting to drain. Inch by inch. Enough that she can feel the floor beneath her feet again.
They stay the night.
No one even asks. Emily curls around Megan in bed like it’s instinct. Joshua takes the other side, an anchor of warmth and familiarity. Megan cries herself to sleep anyway, but when she wakes in the night, she realizes Emily’s arm has tightened around her without her knowing, Joshua’s hand resting steady against her back.
She’s not alone, in what feels like forever.
New Year’s sneaks up on Megan the way everything else has lately, quietly and all at once.
She’s sitting on the couch with Emily and Joshua, knees tucked to her chest, when Emily’s phone lights up with a calendar notification.
“Oh,” Emily says softly. “It’s almost the end of the year.”
The words land strange in Megan’s chest. The end of this year. The year where everything has cracked open. The year she learned how much loving someone could hollow you out.
Emily looks at her for a second, like she’s reading Megan's mind and making a decision.
“Okay,” she says, already moving. “No way you’re spending tonight like this.”
Joshua nods immediately. “Absolutely not.”
And of course, Emily calls Adela.
Of course she does.
Adela answers on the first ring, already halfway through a sentence, already energized. Megan can hear her voice through the phone before Emily even puts it on speaker.
“What do you mean Megan’s sad?” Adela demands. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
By the time Adela shows up, the house changes temperature.
She arrives with garment bags slung over one shoulder, makeup case in hand, sunglasses on even though it’s dark. She takes one look at Megan and her expression softens instantly, the way it always has.
“There you are,” Adela says, pulling Megan into a hug that smells like perfume and certainty. “Come on, angel. We’re fixing this.”
Adela has always been like this.
Even back in Dream Academy, when everything was pressure and cameras and expectations, Adela had gravitated toward Megan naturally. Holding her hand during critiques. Fixing her posture before performances. Whispering encouragement when Megan’s hands shook.
Just… always watching. Protecting. Like an older sister who knew how ugly the world could get and refused to let it take Megan without a fight.
Now, she moves around Megan with the same practiced care.
She picks the cheetah-print dress from the pile without hesitation. “This one,” she says firmly. “Trust me.”
Megan trusts, she thinks she would trust adela even if she told Megan to jump off a bridge.
Adela does her makeup slowly, chatting sweet nothings and humming to herself while Megan replies now and then watching her reflection take shape. Her hair gets styled. Her eyeliner sharpens her gaze. Her lips glossed just enough to catch the light.
Megan barely recognizes herself.
She looks… stunning.
She looks worthy. Worthy of more than someone who has never quite wanted her.
Something in her chest loosens at the thought. She stands a little straighter. Smiles at her reflection and doesn’t immediately feel the quiet familiarity of putting up a show.
Emily and Joshua clean up too. Emily looks radiant, confident, glowing in that way she always does when she’s decided she is ready for a good time. Joshua looks sharp, charming, effortlessly himself.
They look like a group. A unit.
Before they leave, Adela grabs Megan’s phone.
“New year post,” she says. “Non-negotiable.”
Megan hesitates, that familiar flicker of fear flaring in her chest.
Then she nods.
They film a short video together, laughing, swaying, Adela pulling Megan close like it’s second nature. Emily leans into frame, Joshua throws up a peace sign behind them. The room feels alive.
Adela adds the audio.
Ladies and gentlemen, it was lovely to have you this year. See you next year… or not.
Megan watches it upload.
For a second, she thinks of Daniela seeing it. The sadness rises instinctively, automatic.
Adela hooks an arm around Megan’s waist and squeezes. “Hey,” she murmurs. “You’re here. With us. Nowhere else.”
-
The party is loud, so loud it drowns out her thoughts. But its also small, and she recognizes every single face in the room.
Music vibrates through the floor, through her bones, through the places in her body where grief has been sitting dormant. Lights flash. People move. Voices overlap.
It should overwhelm her.
Instead, it steadies her. The side hugs that seem to keep coming, from friends she hasn't seen in years.
For the first time in weeks, her senses are so full that there’s no room left for pain. Her mind quiets, not because it’s numb, but because it’s occupied. Anchored in the present.
Someone drags her onto the dance floor and she dances, like the world is her own studio.
She laughs, head thrown back, hair sticking to her lip gloss. Someone spins her around. Someone else hands her a drink. She loses track of time in the best way.
At midnight, she kisses a friend she barely knows. A boy named Jonah. Emo, cute, funny. The irony makes her laugh into the kiss.
She feels alive, something she hasn't felt in days.
Walking home afterward, arms linked with Emily and Adela, Joshua stumbling beside them, Megan feels warm and unsteady and real. The city hums around them, forgiving and endless.
The ache is still there.
But quieter.
Because maybe her world is bigger than one person. Maybe it’s made of friends who show up uninvited, sisters who glam you into believing in yourself, nights that remind you your body still belongs to you.
Megan doesn’t know what comes next.
But she knows she’s not done yet.
And for now, that’s enough.